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Roast Shoulder of Venison

A roasted venison shoulder seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and served with celery dressing and currant jelly gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Shoulder of Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA good hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Bone and roll the shoulder of venison.

  2. Season the shoulder with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and bits of butter.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the shoulder in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Bake the celery dressing in a separate pan to serve with the venison.

  3. When done, remove the meat and make gravy from the pan.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of currant jelly to the gravy and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Venison + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Venison + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Venison shoulder
Forms the main cut of meat; its lean muscle is cooked through by roasting.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the surface of the meat as it roasts.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a touch of acidity to the pan gravy.

The step that matters

Roast the shoulder in a hot oven. Venison is very lean, so it dries out quickly if overcooked. Roasting it hot to the right internal temperature and then resting it keeps the meat juicy and tender.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (venison, pepper, butter, celery):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against venison, pepper, butter, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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